1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a headphone device to be used by a user by wearing the headphone device on his or her head, for example, a sound reproduction system that includes such a headphone device and is used for reproducing a sound, and a sound reproduction method that is applied to the headphone device or the sound reproduction system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A so-called noise cancellation system is known that is implemented on a headphone device and used to cancel external noise that comes when a sound of content, such as a tune, is being reproduced by the headphone device. Such noise cancellation systems have been put to practical use. The noise cancellation systems are broadly classified into a feedback system and a feedforward system.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 3-214892 (referred to as Patent Document 1 hereinafter) describes a structure of a feedback noise cancellation system in which noise inside a sound tube worn on an ear of a user is picked up by a microphone unit provided close to an earphone unit within the sound tube, a phase-inverted audio signal of the noise is generated, and this audio signal is outputted as sound via the earphone unit, so that the external noise is reduced.
Meanwhile, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 3-96199 (referred to as Patent Document 2 hereinafter) describes a structure of a feedforward noise cancellation system in which, in essence, noise is picked up by a microphone attached to the exterior of a headphone device, a characteristic based on a desired transfer function is given to an audio signal of the noise, and a resultant audio signal is outputted from the headphone device.